ACES ON BRIDGE

“Life is made up of sobs, sniffles and smiles, with sniffles predominating.”

— O. Henry

In today’s deal from an online game, North reasonably raised her partner’s weak two to game. Declarer took the club jack lead with dummy’s ace in order to give up a diamond and pave the way for ruffs in dummy. East took the ace and for some reason returned a diamond, which was ruffed on the table.

Declarer then ruffed a club to hand in order to trump another diamond, felling the king. After ruffing another club, declarer cashed the heart queen and ace and then tried the heart king. Alas, East ruffed in with the spade 10, and declarer was now doomed.

Declarer might have found the winning line of crossing to dummy on the first heart, ruffing a club, and then overtaking his heart queen to lead a third heart. East would have to ruff in high to prevent declarer from eloping with the spade eight, but declarer could overruff and exit with his diamond. Having reduced his trumps, declarer would retain only the spade jack-eight. West would have to ruff the diamond and lead away from the spade ace-nine.

Declarer could also have succeeded by knocking out the spade ace after ruffing the third club to hand, but that would have failed if East had the ace.

For all this, East could have prevailed by force by shifting to a spade at trick two. However, West must duck that to retain control of the trump suit. West would also subsequently need to unblock the diamond king so he could win the second trump and lead across to East’s diamond queen for a diamond ruff.

ANSWER: Rebid two clubs. A jump to three clubs would be forcing to game. While you are not too far away with your extra shape and sharp cards, you can hardly be confident of a game unless partner has a fit, which you will presumably locate by starting with two clubs. If partner gives preference to hearts, raise to three. If partner passes two clubs, you will hope (and maybe expect) game to be poor.